From Fred Thomas' essay on Joao Gilberto's artistry:
My proposition is that what João didn’t do is at least as important, if not more important, than what he did do. His artistry is best understood in terms of the strict limits he imposed on himself and the soaring freedom he attained within them. João is the ultimate archetype of this time-honoured paradox. His musical process involved a search for what he called “the simple truth”. With his recordings and live concerts as our deep listening guide, we will try to find out what his truth means.
With a tenacity bordering on obsessive-compulsive, João delineated his stylistic perimeters, rejecting many of the characteristics most commonplace in music for voice and guitar. Through sheer stubbornness, he managed to set up an enclosed and rule-based system that nevertheless cultivates a specific kind of infinite freedom of phrasing. Beneath their surface layer of simplicity, his recordings are intricate, elusive and, above all, subtle. In other words, João unearthed the holy grail of music making: the transformation of extreme complexity into sounds that are simple, relaxed and clear. Sounds that just float into our minds.
João’s musical style balances exquisitely at the edge of a precipice: just a hint of lush orchestration plunges it into an abyss of queijo. On richly orchestrated and over-produced albums such as “João” and “Amoroso”, arrangers lead us by their grubby hands straight into the elevator: a sublime Japanese ink-drawing transformed into a sicky oil painting hung on a hotel room wall. To those who associate João with easy listening, I simply say, “your listening is too easy, try harder”. His musical essence is minimalist, single-minded, rigorous, unsentimental and child-like: “maybe I would like to go back to when I was a boy,” he said. “After that I learned too many things, and they came out in my music. So now I refine and refine until I can get back to the simple truth. Like when I was a boy”.
Instrumentation and Repertoire
Within João’s earliest work there are many exceptions to the claims set out below. But I’m going to be dealing with his mature solo albums: “JoãoVoz e Violão”, “In Tokyo”, “Live in Montreux”, “Live at Umbria Jazz” and “Eu Sei Que Vou Te Amar”. To my taste, as soon as other instruments were added to his voice and guitar, the music very quickly got worse. My one exception to this rule are Sonny Carr’s narcotic hi-hats on the 1973 album “João Gilberto”, often referred to as the white album (which I will therefore add to my list). By purging everything from his percussion set except these essential hi-hats, Carr mirrors João’s stripped back musical proposition, blending perfectly with the guitar meanwhile. Whether it was Carr, producer Rachel Elkind or João himself who took this radical instrumental decision, it was a masterstroke that lends this hugely influential album its uniquely soporific atmosphere.
Apart from the odd song in Spanish (“Besame Mucho”), Italian (“Estate”), English (“’S Wonderful”), French (“Que Reste-T-Il De Nos Amours”) and the few pieces he composed himself such as “Bim Bom” and “Hô-bá-lá-lá“, João’s huge repertoire derived from three essential Brazilian sources. Having started his career as a drummer in Bahia, João broke through showcasing the radical songs of Tom Jobim/Vinicius de Moraes and other late ‘50s composers, before going on to combine these Bossa Novas with older tunes by composers such as Ary Barroso, Denis Brean and Dorival Caymmi, excavated from the forgotten past. To complete the triangle, the Tropicália movement from the late ‘60s and ‘70s – founded by young apostles such as Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil – provided João with the likes of “Coracão Vagabundo”, “Menino do Rio” and “Sampa”. To this extent, João encompasses the past, present and future. Yet it is remarkable that, filtered through his ultra-fine stylistic sieve, every song he interpreted sounded fundamentally the same. And I mean that as a great compliment. In precisely that way, João is a true minimalist.
Until his last performance in 2008, João continued to play the same hit songs. This insistence was not only generosity to his audience, always gagging for yet another version of “Desafinado”. It also speaks to the sense that, as in jazz, the process was more important and more interesting than the content. During the performance of a song, João would often repeat it over and over, more times than the average listener with limited concentration considered reasonable. Yet each round was phrased uniquely. His search for perfection was obsessive, devotional even; he could repeat forever without repeating himself. “Fazendo sempre a mesma coisa que nunca é a mesma” – always doing the same thing that’s never the same, said Caetano Veloso.“Refine and refine”, even within a six-minute song.
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